~ politics for the people

Home ownership in England has fallen to its lowest level in 30 years

People looking at listings in an estate agent’s window. Home ownership in England has fallen to its lowest level in 30 years [Image: Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA].

When figures like these are published, it really puts the Conservative narrative into perspective.

Tories have spent the last six years pillorying Labour for that party’s record on house building.

But under them, house building has fallen to its lowest level since the 1930s, and now we see home ownership has fallen to its lowest level in 30 years, after having hit a high only just over 10 years ago.

It’s an engineered fall, intended to deprive the poorest of their security – as most Tory policies are.

They destroyed the UK’s industrial base to make it harder for us to find work; they have cut house building to make it harder for us to put a roof over our heads; and they have ended student loans to put more of us in debt for more of our lives.

Why?

So you can’t think.

You don’t have time to consider how to improve the situation – for you and everyone else; you can only react to your current situation.

So, next time a Tory tells you how much better-off your country is, thanks to all their cuts – tackle them.

Tell them you know why they do what they do, and it’s not about making the country better.

It’s about control. It’s about fear. It’s about the few holding power over the masses.

Then tell them their policies of control have failed.

It’s time they had something to fear.

Home ownership in England has fallen to its lowest level in 30 years as the growing gap between earnings and property prices has created a housing crisis that extends beyond London to cities including Manchester.

The struggle to get on the housing ladder is not just a feature of the London property market, according to a new report by the Resolution Foundation thinktank, with Greater Manchester seeing as big a slump in ownership since its peak in the early 2000s as parts of the capital, and cities in Yorkshire and the West Midlands also seeing sharp drops.

Home ownership across England reached a peak in April 2003, when 71% of households owned their home, either outright or with a mortgage, but by February this year the figure had fallen to 64%, the Resolution Foundation said.